


We live, we love, we lie

by StarkDusted



Series: Winter's Assistant [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Assassin Tony Stark, Assistant Tony Stark, Awesome James "Rhodey" Rhodes, BAMF Tony, BAMF Tony Stark, Brainwashed Tony Stark, Brainwashing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fuck you Howard, HYDRA are assholes, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Torture, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Poor Tony, Pre-HYDRA Reveal, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Protective Natasha Romanov, Psychological Torture, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Recovering, Tony Stark-centric, Tony needs love and support, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25896229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkDusted/pseuds/StarkDusted
Summary: A continuation of my series, which will now be done in one-shots to make it less daunting for me. Includes Assistant!Tony, and probably will not make sense unless you've read the first fic! I had a friend who asked for an in-depth scene of Tony telling Rhodey about being the Assistant considering I only skimmed over it in the first fic, so. Here it is.-------“You need to start explaining everything. Now.”He inhales.“December 16th, 1991.” It’s impassive in return, a statement, carefully phrased, dispassionate in tone, but he’s sure his eyes say everything. To Rhodey, Tony’s always been an open book like that, and going by Rhodey’s stillness, the apprehension that flicks through the warm depths of his gaze, he reads Tony as well as he ever has.“It starts there. Everything starts there.”It always does.
Relationships: But not explicitly in this short fic, Happy Hogan & Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, but definitely in this series, i mean - Relationship, so - Relationship, still James "Bucky" Barnes and Tony Stark
Series: Winter's Assistant [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1095909
Comments: 8
Kudos: 199





	We live, we love, we lie

**Author's Note:**

> I had a friend who asked for an in-depth scene of Tony telling Rhodey about being the Assistant considering I only skimmed over it in the first fic, so. Here it is. I’m also kind of hoping this gets my creative juices flowing a little more too, considering I haven’t posted any new things to this work for forever. I’m sorry. Really, truly, I am, I just hit a writer’s block wall and haven’t been able to struggle back past it among the hecticness of my life since I posted ‘And still we prevail’. Again, this is unbetad. Surprise, surprise.
> 
> But hey, one small positive- the hecticness paid off, I got into med school, woo!
> 
> Also, for this short chapter one-shot thing, I just wanna appreciate the Rhodey and Steve parallels I’ve accidentally created cause they’re beautiful.

_\-----------------------------_

_“You need to start explaining everything. Now.”_

_Rhodey stares him down like he’s not going to budge, an immovable wall of titanium-gold alloy, arms crossed over his chest._

_Tony does._

_Rhodey doesn’t look at him differently after it. Rhodey only pulls Tony into his arms and tells him that he never deserved to endure that._

_Rhodey doesn’t let go for a whole three hours._

_(Tony’s glad, even if it’s just because he hasn’t lost Rhodey.)_

_Rhodey, Nat and Clint know now. That’s more than he ever thought would._

_\-----------------------------_

Tony felt much like his entire body was one big bruise. Add in the fact that he was pleasantly jittery on his adrenaline high and a rush of overwhelming anxiety and voila, you have a one-stop-shop for a Disaster in the Making considering Rhodey’d been levelling his ever sharp gaze on him with an alarming intensity ever since Tony’s hauled himself off of Vanko’s bloodied and beaten armoured corpse.

(Honestly, his brain couldn’t help but chime in, when was he not a Disaster in the Making, really? Disaster in the making might even be a light way of putting it- that insinuated that Tony wasn’t already a disaster.)

Half the time, Tony was sure his problems were exclusively of his own design and making, and the other half were inherited from his father because fuck, his luck was lacking, apparently. A day in the life of Tony Stark, right?

So yes, this was more the former than the latter, a problem of his own design, and that was clear considering those of that variety were the kind to be completely and utterly fucked without any chance of redemption, with no way to lie or joke or weasel his way out of what had happened over the course of the last few hours.

Nope, it was done and dusted. Written in stone, _here lies Anthony Edward Stark’s friendship with James Rupert Rhodes, who will undoubtedly walk away as any sane person would after this._

Tony wouldn’t blame him.

Of course he wouldn’t. He’d never blame a soul for turning tail and running when they found out their best friend was a wind-up murder doll once upon a time.

“You gonna tell me how you were able to play tag you’re it with the guy who was just tossing around electrified whips without even batting a lash or…?”

With a heavy sigh, Tony finally drags his eyes away from the blank, lingering darkness of Vanko’s eyes, lifeless as they were, yet still filled with anger and distaste that persisted even past the inevitability of death’s embrace. Hate. That was what he saw in Vanko’s eyes, an intense rage that was well deserved, honestly, even if Tony was only the stand-in for that rage, a second-best, an unfortunate understudy that had taken the place of the main figure that had truly deserved the anger- thanks, Howard. Away from Vanko, Tony’s whiskey brown depths instead level on Rhodey’s own eyes, which were stern yes, but… hesitant. Careful. Afraid? No, something else, something he couldn’t peg right now.

Expectant though, Rhodey was definitely that.

Bruised knuckles and fingers coil, smattered with blue and purple that would fade within the hour, the serum singing through his blood in time with each thunderous pulse of his heart. Blood would wash away, at least visibly, though the cloying crimson would continue to cling to his soul, he was sure.

Red. Tony both loved and hated red. Maybe he should invest in a new color scheme for the armour, red was a little too on the nose. Black? Tony did like black, a left-over preference from his time lingering in shadows, he’d bet. Or maybe it was from his time before that, too many galas in black tuxes- no, he’d only been to the ones he was forced to go to before he was seventeen, so that was off by a long shot. Preference for black after the Assistant shindig? Passable, he could say that was the case if he lied blatantly enough to himself.

“Tony? Earth to Tony.”

“Hm? I’m here, present, just…thinking. Processing. Not freaking out, all is fine on the Western Front over here, sour patch, don’t get your patriotic panties in a twist.”

“Sure. Is that why you’ve neglected to answer me and have instead been staring at your hands for the last three minutes and forty-two seconds?”

“…now that’s a blatant, bold-faced exaggeration- “

“No. It really wasn’t. I was counting.” A trimmed nail taps against the half-shattered glass face of a watch, and Rhodey barely lifts a brow to drive that point home all the more firmly.

“Okay, you caught me red-handed,” Tony announces, lifting his hands palms up in the universal gesture for surrender, only to pause as a wave of anxiety struck again with a surety that left him stilling for a moment, defence mechanisms gearing up easily enough even though he still felt like a deer in headlights. “Literally, technically.” Thank you, lack of brain to mouth filter.

“Still feeling good enough to joke. Not bad for a civvy. Least I don’t need to panic about you going into shock on me, Tones.”

“Yeah. Silver lining.”

“Exactly. So. You going to answer my question on how you learnt how to be a ninja, because you moved faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move before.”

A quiet whir, silver and gunmetal grey arms crossed over a chest awkwardly, the front plating too stiff and the profile too unaccommodating to allow Rhodey to really pull off the angle he was going for- but it was a stance Tony knew well enough. One he knew all _too_ well.

Rhodey wasn’t going to budge.

Tony swallows, thickly, loudly, painfully.

“Alright. We’ll talk. Just at my place, and not in the middle of a scorched community garden I’m going to need to make a nice donation to the city to patch up.”

“Deal. Catch you at yours.”

And with that, Rhodey shot upward and tore through an unshattered panel of glass on his way out of the garden, and Tony was left blinking as the shards rained down, leaving him alone in the bleak darkness the broken remains of his armour spread out amongst his feet in a sprawl of razed gold and burnt red.

“…and he has the audacity to call _me_ the fucking drama queen.”

_\-----------------------------_

Tony swore that Rhodey had done it on purpose, leaving him to make his own way back to the Malibu mansion, to give Tony enough time to ponder and think in the back of the car as Happy drove him on home.

Not enough time to come up with a hell of a bullshit excuse, of which Tony was the master of, but long enough for Tony to recognise that there _was no way_ that he could make a bullshit excuse up for this. Tony was sure of that, and it all boiled down to a perfect little list that was all too easy to dot point in his head.

One: Rhodey was right in saying that Tony had moved quicker than any human could do, because it was the truth. Tony was enhanced, no person could feasibly pull off what he had without enhancements. Not even speed alone could have allowed him to manage it. Reaction time, flexibility, force, training- all factored in, and he was sure Rhodey, Mr Military Trained, would recognise that in him too. Sure, it wasn’t of the same vein in its entirety, but there was a strict rigour to Tony when he…fought without the suit, one that leant toward military precision, and one Rhodey would undoubtedly recognise. Thus: bullshitting on that front? Impossible.

Two: Rhodey was as stubborn as he was. Stubborn, and with an affinity for dealing with Tony like no other had managed to do until Pepper had ambled on along with her fiery wit and intense personality, one that lead Tony to obey rather than sass and fight back against every word she said- and oh, let it be known that Tony was not one to like directions or orders, thanks, he had had nearly a decade of taking orders without question, and he was deathly fucking allergic to it by this point, naturally, so when he willingly listened to someone? Fuck, it was a special thing.

Three: Tony was tired. Tired of lying. Tired of hiding. Of plastering on an easy, false smile and lying through his teeth to one of the people that he trusted most in the world on something this big, this intrinsically important in the scheme of what made him… _him._ Tony would like to lie and say HYDRA hadn’t changed him, hadn’t left their mark on him- but the simple truth was that they had. They’d shaped Tony to some degree, not entirely anymore like they once had, but even the smallest marks of their influence were left in him now, and he knew that full well. Hiding that part of him away was draining, especially when it came with the added loss of making him feel guilty for lying to Rhodey.

So yes. Tony was very sure Rhodey had essentially left Tony to ponder the upcoming unpleasant conversation, because this right here? Was like the adult equivalent of sticking him in the corner and giving him a time out. The only difference was that it was mostly self-inflicted, and Tony was stuck in a car as his crisis mounted.

Fantastic, right? Fucking wonderful.

It was times like this that Tony was glad, if anything, for HYDRA’s influence, because the anxiety was easily ignorable, expression easily controlled if he focused on one thing. If he focused on a mission, self-imposed as it was as he came to his resolution.

_Tell Rhodey the truth._

Simple, yet overwhelmingly difficult in contrast, a perfect contradiction. Sounded great on paper, pretty shitty in practice. Deft fingers yank through tangled locks, scalp stinging with the viciousness that he used to tug through resistant knots in his matted tresses, pausing only at the vibration that tingled at his thigh.

He knew who it was before he’d even tugged his phone out, or before his screen had taken to lighting up the entire backseat of the car.

_Found your mess in the garden, Tosha. Least you could have done is yank out the shrapnel you left in our bad guy of the week, so I don’t have to haphazardly falsify the SHIELD report to keep your cover. NR_

_Sorry. Had bigger fish to fry. Rhodey wants to talk. TS_

_About? NR_

_You know what. TS_

_I can guess. Your suit being in tatters and all, and him being a witness to you effectively skewering a man with a makeshift knife. NR_

_Mm. Fun, right? I made do with what I had, you shouldn’t tut so much, Talia, I know you’re pleased as punch that I did it without my fancy suit. TS_

_The suit is cheating. It’s making you lose your touch. NR_

_Says the woman I pinned to the mat yesterday in a spar. TS_

_I let you win. NR_

_I’m sure you did, itsy-bitsy, I’m sure you did. TS_

_Watch your back, your sarcasm’s not done you any favors. NR_

_I’m terrified. Shaking in my one-thousand-dollar custom made Italian leather shoes. TS_

_As you should be, Antoshka. NR  
Are you going to tell him? NR_

_I’m lacking options on that front. But even if I wasn’t- I’d tell. It’s time, right? Spill the beans, rip the band-aid off, get it over and done with. TS_

_If you’re sure. I’ll be around after, if you need, but I doubt that’ll be necessary. Go slow. Don’t rush. Be honest. NR_

_Your faith is unwavering. TS_

_Mm. In Colonel Rhodes? For good reason. NR_

“Boss? We’re home. You sure you’re going to be fine to get in on your own? Because if need be, I could offer you an arm or a hand.”

Tony’s eyes flick away from his phone then, light going dim and then off entirely as Tony pockets his phone hastily, gaze meeting Happy’s in the rear-view mirror. “I’m fine, Hap. I mean, I look like shit, sure, but hey, what’s new, I crawl out of my lab looking like this sometimes. Go home, relax, try not to think about the run-in with murder bots tonight,” Tony drawls as he slips out of the car, shutting the car door with an audible slam behind him, and despite the new barrier between them, he could still hear Happy interjecting and huffing back at him without pause.

“…like a fucking comic book, boss, you’re turning my life into a fucking superhero action movie in real life.”

“Home, Happy. Grumble in the car, then go for a bath. Toss in a bath bomb, some smelling salts, I hear Lush has good bath bombs, pink might soothe you-“ and that was all Tony got out before Happy was rolling his eyes, lips tilted into an easy, exasperated smile, and then the car was flooring it away from him.

Joking. Tony did it best when he was stressed.

So, all the time, really, but particularly right now.

Never before had the door of his own Malibu mansion looked as daunting as it did right now, knowing Rhodey was sitting somewhere behind it, waiting.

_‘Hey, Rhodey, turns out, the reason I’m like a fucking Naruto character is because I’m a genetically engineered supersoldier made by neo-Nazis, surprise!’_

Yep.

This could only go well.

Steeling himself, feet shoulder-width apart, shoulders back and mouth drawn into a flat line, Tony steels himself, and almost as if he was on autopilot, he drifts forward.

It didn’t take long to find Rhodey, as Tony ghosts along through the rooms of his own house, JARVIS lighting the way as he went, and if Tony hadn’t been so suddenly on edge, he might have found the vision of Rhodey sprawled out on his couch in the knock-off Hammer-fied armour with his hand in a packet of Doritos amusing.

“You took your time.”

“Traffic is a bitch during the aftermath of a mini-robot war, apparently, who would have guessed?” Tony crosses the space then, fingers drifting forward into the side panel of the armour, and thankfully, the manual release mechanism is still there. The armour falls away from Rhodey in a scattering of grey-toned hues that tumble onto the couch or onto the floor, leaving Rhodey bare as Tony.

Levelling the playing field.

He settles then, moving to sit silently on the other end of the couch, tucking his legs up beneath him, haphazardly crossed yet still comfortable, the silence only broken by Rhodey’s razor-sharp tone, impassive, immovable, brokering no argument.

“You need to start explaining everything. Now.”

He inhales.

A wavering, quiet, painful thing that speaks in louder volumes than his voice does in that moment, curling up in his chest tightly enough that it feels like he’s suffocating on it, like he’s gagging on words and unable to speak them aloud- because he’s never had to _tell anyone_ this. Natasha and Clint had always known. Natasha had been there with him, Clint had found out from Natasha and had been around for his recovery, but Tony hadn’t whispered a word to anyone else of his true fate on that awful cold December night.

His vindictive admittance to Obadiah didn’t count of course, not like this.

But, despite the unwillingness to talk, despite the fear that haunts him, the awful choking realisation that he could _lose Rhodey tonight,_ Tony breathes-

And he speaks.

“December 16th, 1991.” It’s impassive in return, a statement, carefully phrased, dispassionate in tone, but he’s sure his eyes say everything. To Rhodey, Tony’s always been an open book like that, and going by Rhodey’s stillness, the apprehension that flicks through the warm depths of his gaze, he reads Tony as well as he ever has.

“It starts there. Everything starts there. I wish I could say it haunts me because I witnessed the murder of my parents in front of me, but it doesn’t. Maybe I should feel guilty that that’s not the primary reason that night haunts me, but then again, maybe not. My kidnappers were kind of shit, Rhodey-bear. Not nice, but even less nice than I ever let on to them being considering they’re a group of assholes who’ve lingered on past World War Two when Captain America was meant to have gotten rid of them alongside the Nazi regime. HYDRA. That was who was there, and me living? Not a good thing, you could guess.”

Rhodey doesn’t say anything, not yet, but there’s a dawning horror in Rhodey’s eyes, one Tony looks away to avoid seeing, because he doesn’t want to see the sympathy, not when he hasn’t gotten to the worst part. Because right now, Rhodey’s only seeing Tony as the victim- he’s yet to hear about the victims Tony has made in turn.

“So. I end up with the bad guys. It might have been okay if they planned to do normal bad guy shit to me, but no, they went and upped the ante. See, apparently daddy dearest had re-replicated the serum, and with that in hand, they wanted some test runs, some investments. Who better than the newly impressionable genius they’d ripped out of the wreckage right? So, one out of five, I get into the guinea pig experiment, and voila, I’m super soldiered up. Sure, not as strong as Cap might have been, but I’m fast, quick, tactical minded. Perfect assassin material, and they knew that, but I didn’t want to play nice.”

“ _Tony.”_

Rhodey’s voice is like fractured steel, like fatigued metal finally shearing along the fissures, raw and sharp and awful, and Tony glances away from the wall for a beat, only to find Rhodey half a couch length closer- and then Rhodey’s on him. His arms are winding around Tony, who remains absolutely stock-still, confusion lancing through him as limbs tighten around him firmly, squashing him against a broad, muscular chest that’s heaving with exaggerated inhalations, like Rhodey’s barely keeping his composure, and Tony honestly can’t tell if he’s pissed or upset.

He can’t bring himself to care.

It’s like coming home all over again, like that night he had walked back into his childhood home and found Rhodey waiting for him, like that moment that Rhodey had dragged him in for a hug, like finally being able to breathe right for the first time in years past the searing agony that existed forever in the space of his chest, a space that was now occupied fittingly with a machine of his own making that radiated that same ache on a physical level. Discordant but symphonious in their co-existence.

“ _Tones.”_

 _‘I can guess what they did’,_ Rhodey’s tone says, wordless but oh so honest. ‘ _I can guess what they did, and I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. Let it out.’_

And Tony does.

With trembling hands (traitorously trembling fucking hands) Tony grasps at Rhodey, fingers coiling into fists, grasping at Rhodey’s shirt by the fistful, holding on for dear life as he lets his head fall against Rhodey’s shoulder as he ploughs on, tension never once evaporating from the stiff line of his frame.

“They had a process. They’d done it to someone else before. Tortured. Broke them down. They did the same with me. Hurt until I was left wide open, and when I was, they stuck me in the chair. Electricity right to the brain. Being a supersoldier means I survive it, sure, survive, but forget. Again and again and again. I forgot. You. My parents. Ana. Jarvis. Everything. Myself. Tony Stark? No idea who he was, I was just…existing, nameless, given a title, given a position, and trained. The Assistant. I was an undercover Russian operative, an assassin- which sure, I know, sounds like I’m pulling your leg, me, Russian? Tony Stark, an assassin? Bullshit, right? Sounds insane, right?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Tone-“

“Nope. No, no, don’t do that. I’m not done. Do you know how many people I killed? Men? Women? Children? They point, I shoot. They tell me to jump, I ask how high, they don’t need me anymore, they stick me in the freezer till they need me for something else, then they defrost, set me on a new mission, train me some more, so on, so forth. I killed people, Rhodey. Without blinking, Without question. Innocents. Soldiers sometimes. I could have been close to killing you more than a dozen times without ever knowing.”

“Shut up. Right now, shut it.”

“Shut up? Are you telling me to-“

“Shut up. Yes. Cause you just said it yourself. You were…fuck, you were fucking _brainwashed,_ Tony. You were held under duress to the extreme, you were a prisoner, tortured, brainwashed, and they treated you like some sort of…fucking robot to push their agenda. You just said it yourself. They point, you shoot. They point. You shoot. To me, that sounds like they’re the wielder, and you were the weapon. You were the gun. You can’t blame yourself for that-“

Tony snorts at that. “You’d be mistaken on that front. Blaming myself? I’m a pro at that.”

“ _You can’t blame yourself for that,_ because it wasn’t your _choice._ If you’d had a choice, would you have done it?”

“…No.”

“If you had a choice, would you have fought them rather than obeyed their directives?”

“Yes.”

“If you had a choice, would you ever have chosen that path for you?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then there you go. So stop, because you never deserved any of that. No one deserves what they did to you.”

Rhodey’s grip tightens then, hauls him in closer, and Tony…lets him. He lets Rhodey coddle him close, lets Rhodey push his nose into his hair as something in him finally uncoils, tension evaporating and leaving him space to breathe again, because Rhodey…wasn’t going anywhere. Rhodey was staying, Rhodey didn’t blame him for the things he’d done, didn’t put him at fault despite not knowing every sorry detail of his dark history, and that? That was enough to have Tony screwing his eyes shut and properly looping his own arms around Rhodey in return, breathing in a ragged breath against his best friend’s throat.

Fuck, sometimes he loved it when Natasha was right.

“You’re alright, Tony. Everything’s fine.”

And yes. Yeah. Alright. Maybe everything would be fine.

For a while, Tony was willing to let himself believe that, as Rhodey whispered words of promise into his hair, and Tony took comfort in the knowledge that Rhodey wouldn’t abandon him no matter what life threw at them, because this? This was probably the hardest bump in the road that anyone could ever have in a friendship, right?

Tony fucking hoped so.

_Rhodey, Nat and Clint know now. That’s more than he ever thought would_


End file.
